The installation of floor drains and floor cleanouts during building construction is often complicated by the permanent nature of the concrete floor into which they are set. The construction process is problematic in that the tops of the fixtures must be protected during pouring and setting of the concrete floor, both to prevent seepage of concrete into the screw holes and grates incorporated into the fixtures, and to avoid damage to the delicate bronze finish of the tops. Moreover, in order to assure a substantially planar floor surface after the concrete floor has been placed and cured, an adjustment of the height of these embedded devices is often necessary, and adequate space must be reserved around the fixtures to allow for this final adjustment.
Various devices have been described in the prior art to protect plumbing pipes and the like during floor installation. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,421,551 to Currier discloses a foamed plastic sleeve, which is placed over a pipe to be embedded in concrete so as to reserve an annular space around the pipe. The sleeve is designed to fit frictionally over a conventional four-inch pipe, and can be cut away after the floor material has set, allowing access to the pipe. Of similar design and utility are U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,800,486 to Harvey, 3,048,911 to Ahnon, 3,276,176 to Jonsson et al., 4,212,486 to Logsdon, 4,112,979 to Widdicombe, 4,967,422 to Novak, and 2,508,044 to Seddon. Unfortunately, these existing devices are designed to attach to the pipe itself, and cannot accommodate more conventional plumbing fixtures such as the floor drains and cleanouts now in widespread use in the construction industry. See, e.g., FIG. 1. Thus, the ubiquitous use of these modem plumbing fixtures has created a new and unique problem which has not been addressed by the prior art.
Since the prior art protective devices cannot accommodate these types of plumbing fixtures, plumbers and other construction workers have been left to rely on wrapping the drains and cleanouts with masking tape or the like in order to protect the fixtures, a technique which is both time consuming and very labor intensive. Plumbers typically charge $1.00 per minute or more for their services, and the cost of wrapping, and then locating and unwrapping, each floor drain and cleanout during floor construction can quickly become prohibitive, particularly in a large building having hundreds of these fixtures. Moreover, the tape covering all too often is torn or removed during the construction process, resulting in damage to the top. Finally, an exorbitant amount of tape must be used in order to reserve a sufficient annular space around the embedded fixture.
Thus, a significant need remains in the art for a lightweight and inexpensive protective cover designed to universally accommodate modem plumbing fixtures such as floor drains, floor cleanouts and the like, rather than the underlying pipe. What is needed is a disposable cover which securely attaches to the plumbing fixture prior to floor construction, provides simple and rapid access to the fixture upon completion of the floor, and reserves sufficient annular space around the fixture for final adjustment.